Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man is ‘a darkly comic psychological thriller’ that plays like an inverted Beauty and the Beast. What happens when the handsome prince turns out to be not all that?
The three central performances are magnificent, and there’s a wry absurdist humour at work but unless you’re a fan of body horror it’s not an easy watch. I often had to look away. I can’t, therefore, say I particularly enjoyed seeing it, but now I have seen it I don’t regret it. Is that, dear readers, fudged enough for you?
Sebastian Stan stars as Edward, an aspiring actor who lives in New York and has neurofibromatosis, the genetic condition where tumours grow under the skin. (This is not what the Elephant Man had; he is thought to have had Proteus syndrome.) Stan is unrecognisable beneath facial prosthetics and if you’re minded to object to a non-facially disfigured actor playing a facially disfigured character then sit tight.
Because we are ‘hot-wired to fear ugly people’ as someone will blithely note, Edward is stared at, laughed at, shunned but also, to be fair, many are not bothered. The young playwright Ingrid (the wonderful Renate Reinsve from The Worst Person in the World), who moves into the apartment next door, is bothered for a second – she blanches with shock – but then isn’t bothered.
The two become friendly. Thinking his deformity would prevent any romance from developing, Edward jumps at the chance of an experimental medical therapy that could ‘cure’ him. The therapy is miraculous and his face peels off – this is the gory bit, where I had to stare into my lap. But then, ta da! Yes. Sebastian Stan is now the handsome Sebastian Stan who appeared in all those Marvel films and is an absolute revelation as an actor (who knew the Winter Soldier had it in him?)
Cut to a few years down the line, when Edward has ditched Edward, and has reinvented himself as ‘Guy’, and is a successful real estate agent who lives in a swish loft and has no problem getting girls.
His path crosses with Ingrid once more when he discovers she is auditioning actors for a play she has written. The play is about Edward. ‘I am not the beast, I am Edward,’ is one of the lines in the script. The Edward that was Edward auditions to play Edward and fails to get the part of Edward because Oswald is on the scene.
Oswald is played by Adam Pearson, a British actor who has neurofibromatosis, and is terrific. Oswald is happy as he is and is popular, funny, charming, debonair, plays jazz saxophone, juggles. When Oswald gets the part it sends ‘Guy’ into a jealous fury.
This becomes a full-on melodrama – I was most put in mind of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan – while keeping you ill at ease throughout. There is a discordant score and mysterious black stains that drip ceaselessly. But is the film actually saying anything more profound than ‘beauty is only skin deep’ – even if, to my knowledge, no one has got anywhere simply by having a lovely spleen?
Also, why do we have to punish the Edward that becomes Guy for wanting to look the same as everyone else, just as Riz Ahmed’s character in Sound of Metal was punished for not wanting to be deaf? Can you blame them?
The movie does keep you on your toes and does not unfold along lines that can be anticipated, which is a relief, as mostly you know where a film is going in the first ten minutes.
So, no regrets. Which is a recommendation – of sorts.
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